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Texas Instruments’ global team is committed to overcoming challenges and developing new MagPack™ packaging technology for power modules, a groundbreaking technology that will help drive the future of power design.
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As an experienced marathon runner, Kenji Kawano knows that patience and perseverance are crucial in the process of striving towards a distant finish line. Developing new technology can be likened to a marathon, where success comes through gradual improvements and inevitable setbacks. Kenji, from Japan, is a senior manager in the power division of Kilby Labs (Texas Instruments’ innovative breakthrough application research lab) and has gone through this process many times.
Kenji Kawano
Kenji and Texas Instruments’ global designers, researchers, and manufacturers have invested significant time and effort in developing a technology aimed at improving power modules, namely plug-and-play building blocks for electronic design.
The result of their efforts is the all-new proprietary MagPack integrated magnetic packaging technology, offering designers in industrial, enterprise, and communication applications performance levels previously unattainable.
Kenji states:
This technology not only provides higher power density, achieves greater efficiency, but also reduces system costs.
Demand for Higher Efficiency
Power modules are widely used in modern technology. They integrate multiple electronic components into one package, helping to reduce the time designers spend in the design process. However, as global power consumption increases and applications shrink in size, there is a growing demand to reduce the size of power modules and improve their efficiency, enabling them to fit into smaller devices like digital pens.
Texas Instruments’ systems engineer and module technology expert from Germany, Anton Winkler, has been working to enhance the performance of power modules. His work in the field has ultimately led to a long-term collaboration with Kenji.
Anton states: “I know Kenji has also been researching this area. Therefore, we view this work as a cross-team technology development.”
Simple Design Principles
Complex Implementation Process
In power design, size is critical. Designers face the challenge of providing greater power in a smaller space, which is significant because it requires closely packing components while managing different voltages without causing short circuits.
Anton states: “People want the right amount of energy to flow to the load. Otherwise, the load will not function properly and may even be damaged.”
Power modules typically contain semiconductors connected to the circuit board and separate inductors; inductors store energy in a magnetic field and help smooth current flow. Inductors can become efficiency bottlenecks and take up significant board space. Choosing the right inductor can be a time-consuming and labor-intensive process for designers.
Recognizing this issue, the team combined inductors with integrated circuits to save space and increase power density. Although the design principles are simple, implementation is challenging. The team optimized inductors based on specifications using a neural network approach, while the 3D packaging molding process allowed them to maximize the height, weight, and depth of the MagPack packaging technology, which includes optimized power inductors made from proprietary new design materials.
Anton states:
This development involves mechanical, electrical, and chemical processes, making it a multidisciplinary task.
The new power modules offer designers choices in terms of size or performance. They allow engineers to halve the size of power solutions while doubling the power density. For example, designers of optical modules can use power modules incorporating MagPack technology to double the power density while maintaining the same form factor. This is particularly important for applications such as data centers that consume large amounts of energy.
This technology also helps minimize system losses, reduce module temperatures, and mitigate electromagnetic interference. The efforts and collaboration put into developing this technology ultimately mean that designers can save up to 45% of their time on power design.
Challenging the Status Quo
Once the prototype is ready, the next task is to mass-produce the power modules. Texas Instruments’ packaging team is responsible for developing manufacturing processes, sourcing materials, and preparing new tools to produce components. The manager of packaging engineering in the Philippines, John Carlo Molina, states that this work is both exciting and “stressful.”
John Carlo states: “We are creating groundbreaking products that challenge the status quo and introduce new packaging configurations. But we know that success cannot be measured solely by originality. From the beginning, our focus has been on developing reliable, high-quality products using processes that can support mass manufacturing. Shipping the first batch of samples for testing relieved us and provided tremendous motivation for the next phase of work.”
Although this technology is still new, developers envision applying it to areas such as patient monitoring and diagnostics, instrumentation, aerospace and defense, and data centers of various sizes.
Anton states: “My personal goal is to continue expanding the markets we can enter and ultimately achieve the industry standard required to make it automotive qualified technology.”
As power demands in the market and applications grow exponentially, the new MagPack integrated magnetic packaging technology will help reshape the future of power design, enabling engineers to achieve greater power in smaller spaces than ever before.
For more information, please click to read the original article:《MagPack Technology: Four Advantages of the New Power Module to Help You Provide Greater Power in a Smaller Space》